Oscar Talk Season Five Episode One: ‘Lee Daniels’ The Butler’

Oscar Talk Season Five Episode One: 'Lee Daniels' The Butler'

On this week’s Oscar Talk Podcast, the first of our fifth season, In Contention’s Kris Tapley and I round up the movies that have already screened, from Sundance hits “Fruitvale Station,” “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints” and “Before Midnight” to the Cannes titles (“All is Lost,” “Blue is the Warmest Color,” “The Immigrants,” “Nebraska,” “The Past”) that are likely to show up at Venice, Telluride, Toronto or New York.

Right now, Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine,” starring best actress contender Cate Blanchett is at the front of the pack along with “Lee Daniels’ The Butler,” which the Weinstein Co. is optimistically opening wide this weekend.

We also look forward to new titles coming up on the fall fest circuit, from studio titles “Gravity” and “Labor Day” to two biopics starring German actor Daniel Bruhl (Ron Howard’s “Rush” and Bill Condon’s “The Fifth Estate”). Meanwhile Matthew McConaughey not only has a supporting role in indie hit “Mud” in the Oscar conversation but two more big films still to come (he’s lead in “The Dallas Buyer’s Club” and supporting in Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street”).

We explain how we’ll be doing the podcast this year, not weekly from now on but monthly: saving up our best stuff and cutting back on repetition.

The podcast is also on iTunes. Keep track of my latest Oscar predictions here.